The character of our land at Lawson Park is
fundamental to the ethos of Grizedale Arts, whether it's to
produce the food shared at a village dinner, to surprise a group of
passing mountain-bikers or to promote new approaches to planting to
local gardeners.

The present site of Lawson Park Farm is
approximately 15 acres, of which some 5-6 are in
present cultivation. Bordered by Grizedale Forest and its
sheltering plantations to the East and South, the unimproved land
here is acidic, thin and very very VERY wet, so each new
development we make requires very hard graft. Historically, the site was largely used as a sheep
farm so each new productive area breaks new ground.
Despite this, the advantages of the site are many - conditions are
often favourable - we often suffer from less hard frost than the
village in the valley and are south west facing with plenty of
light. Also, we have not inherited the outmoded or high-maintenance
features that blight many older properties' gardens, so we have
been able to invent our own 21st century version of Lawson Park,
more or less from scratch.

Across the site we have occasional art works by the likes
of Olaf
Breuning and Pablo
Bronstein, but we have not wanted to recreate the 'sculpture
park' of the earlier Grizedale Society: The ethos
of the organisation now is embedded in the entire working site.

Our most active areas include a deer-fenced field (our only
deer-fenced plot) of about 2 acres - The Paddies
- which were landscaped with the aid of the
villagers of the Japanese village of Toge, as part
of the
Seven Samurai cultural exchange project. This area is used
for experimental land projects, larger scale vegetable growing than
is possible elsewhere, and soft fruit. Elsewhere we also have
an organic Kitchen Garden
with apiary (built in 2006/7) and poultry, a Wildflower Meadow of about 3
acres, and Ornamental
Gardens of about 1.5 acres, including woodland and bog areas.

Since 2007 we have kept pigs on and off at the Farm and in 2009
built the new poultry area, in 2011 moving our trusty old hens to
new Orchard and acquiring some
beautiful and productive free-range runner ducks.

The gardens and land open to the public at selected
times. Groups of between 10 - 20 may visit by appointment
(a charge is made for this) and under the National Garden Scheme we open for
charity annually. We regulary hold volunteer
events (free lunch!) so get in touch if your fancy some
hard but very rewarding work with interesting people.